You can convene a wider cross-section if you have no turf to defend, because then you don't cut across anyone else's agenda and you can achieve a great deal.

South Africa is regarded as being an extraordinarily important country - not just for South Africa, but for Southern Africa, for the BRICS, working now in a new way in which power is becoming more shared - thankfully.

The Great Famine is a period of our history that we need to know in great detail in order to understand its continuing impact on us as a people. Its causes were complex. We can't apportion blame simplistically but rather [must] understand that blame has to be shared in different areas and levels of society. It was the very poorest of the poor, the small tenants and cottiers, who really suffered. Others were less affected. But most of all I welcomed the commemoration because it was a moment to look into our past and realize the courage and resilience of those who survived.

Companies should increasingly see themselves as major corporate citizens with a wider responsibility to the community. Nothing less than their reputation - their image - is at stake.

It is a great problem for the true international agenda of human rights that the United States, uniquely among industrialised countries, has not ratified three main instruments, has not ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and we could have so much richer a debate and dialogue on international human rights standards if the superpower would sign up to the agenda.

If the Chinese business community takes the Declaration of Human Rights, core labor standards, and environmental standards seriously, the government of China will take them far more seriously, too.

Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century.